The Apple Watch ban caused the removal of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 from sale on Apple’s online store in the United States. As per the previous announcements, Apple has removed these watches because of the ongoing patent dispute with Masimo, a medical device company. The decision came after the ITC ruled in October that the oxygen level feature of Apple watches infringes two patents by Masimo, and an import ban will be imposed on these watches starting December 26th.
Apple connected with Masimo in 2013 to discuss a possible collaboration between them. Masimo, the medical device company, claims that Apple took advantage of the meeting to identify the officers they wanted to steal. Apple has also employed many staff members from Masimo which includes many engineers and their chief medical officer. Apple launched the Apple Watch Series 6 in 2020, with a property to measure blood oxygen levels by a SpO2 sensor.
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Masimo filed a lawsuit in US District Court in 2020 claiming that Apple has infringed on 10 of their patents. The company again filed a different case in 2021 with the ITC, which prompted Apple to sue them back with the allegation of making an Apple watch clone with a Masimo M1 medical watch. However, the ITC ruled in favour of Masimo in January 2023, with the judgement that the Apple watch originally infringed on Masimo patents.
ITC issued a ban on the import of these products in October and ruled to stop the sales of already imported products. Experts think that Apple can’t stop the ban. It has removed the watches from online stores and will remove them from the Apple store after December 24th.
Update: Apple briefly paused Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales on December 21, 2023, ahead of the import ban’s effective date of December 26. A US federal appeals court paused that ban on December 27, 2023, and Apple resumed sales while the case continued. Blood oxygen monitoring itself became unavailable on US units starting January 18, 2024, pending the dispute’s outcome. Apple later reintroduced the feature for US units via a software update (iOS 18.6.1 and watchOS 11.6.1) on August 14, 2025, by having the paired iPhone, rather than the watch itself, perform the blood oxygen calculation — a workaround designed around the Masimo patent at issue. As of this update, Series 9 and Ultra 2 are available for purchase in the US with blood oxygen monitoring restored through this iPhone-based method.
